Enter Werner
by bhut
Summary: Canon-compatible AU. Kara Palamas is alive. She and Ward still run into Werner von Strucker...


**Enter Werner**

_Disclaimer: all characters here belong to Marvel and etc._

_Across the multiverse…_

Once upon a time, after his well-intentional, but misguided attempt to reconcile Kara and Bobbi Morse went south, Grant Ward was sitting in a store in Spain and…actually enjoying himself, seeing Kara enjoying herself by going on a shopping spree and just seeing Kara go through various dresses, fancy hats, and especially stockings and shoes – basically, she was happy to have any excuse to undress and re-dress herself.

So did Ward. Yes, once upon a time, he thought about doing this with a different woman…except that he honestly could not see Skye slash Daisy doing this…so his tastes regarding women ran towards different women than he assumed, or he just loved her regardless of his tastes towards women…

"Baby?" Kara finally had had enough and trotted over to him. "What do you think?"

Grant immediately snapped into his caring but horny boyfriend mode, (not that it was so hard) and promptly gave his opinion towards all of the dresses, stocking and shoes that she had tried out in front of him.

"Interesting," Kara narrowed her eyes and lightly slapped at him. "Eyes up here, mister!"

Grant narrowed his own eyes, giving his own pointed looks at her current dress – also on the skimpy side. "True, but," Kara continued brightly, when she was interrupted when someone else – dressed professionally – walked into their field of vision, saw them, groaned, and just sat down, defeated and groaning.

"And this is Ian Quinn," Grant said flatly. "He's with Hydra. This means that it is also in town. Bleep!"

"Bleep?" Kara raised an eyebrow.

"Women and children are around. Anyhow, Hydra?"

"Good point," Kara fingered her purse, which contained a couple of ceramic blades, among other things, (reinforced with vibranium, incidentally). "Now, Mr. Quinn-"

"Wait, what?" Quinn apparently had been more coherent than Grant and Kara assumed him to be, and paid attention to what was going on around him. "You're _not_ with Hydra?"

"No," Grant said flatly – the last thing he wanted right now was a visual reminder of the time when his life had exploded and collapsed and he had no direction in which to go. Yes, that had been his fault too, but that epiphany…was not helping him any, not now, not any more. "Why?"

"Can I seek refuge with you?" the other man continued to probe. "You and Garrett had been bad people, true, but the crowd I got passed on is worse. Where is Garrett, anyhow? Is he dead?"

"Yes," Grant nodded absent-mindedly, as he noticed someone else now approaching. "I really don't need this sort of a journey down the memory lane… hello, Kebo."

"Grant Ward! Long-time no see!" the newcomer whistled brightly. "How's life?"

"Kara," Grant grimaced, "this is Kebo. Be careful – he has been married and divorced almost forty times by now."

"…I thought that he was Hydra?" Kara frowned.

"Yes, I am!" Kebo grinned brightly. "Want to try?"

"No," Kara said brightly, as she grabbed Ward tightly – just in case. "So, who do you work for?"

"He works for Carmichael, who works for Malick, who's the last head of Hydra," Ian piped up from behind her and Ward.

"Malick?" Kara looked at Ward.

"One of the richest people in the world," Ward was thoughtful; "financially he was almost as powerful as Whitehall, but was clever enough to demure to him all the same."

"How clean is he? Or rather – how dirty?"

"Nothing so outlandish as Whitehall or Garrett were," Quinn continued to speak from behind them, even though no one was asking him, "he is just doing some good old fashioned human crimes, including human trafficking-"

There was a pause as Kara looked at Grant and vice versa and then both of them looked at Kebo.

"Um," the bald man said. "What?"

"Yes, no," Grant exhaled, as he reached behind and pulled out Quinn. "Let's start from the beginning – what's eating you specifically?"

"I'm working for a man who makes Stark look like Captain America in every way," Quinn snapped back, finally recovering his backbone, "and what's more, both he and his people are parasites, they don't do anything good and don't permit anyone to do good and right either."

"Since when-"

"Oh, I don't," Quinn did not back down even though Ward was holding him aboveground, how a ferret would hold a rat, "I just want to get out!" He paused and added: "though Stephanie Malick _is_ something else…"

"Of course," Ward rolled his eyes. "Kebo! Where did the two of you come from?"

"Von Strucker's yacht – Quinn is currently working under Carmichael to work out the finances-"

"Please! Malick is a financial parasite – he's just robbing the bloody boy blind," Ian Quinn sniffed disdainfully.

"And the boy himself?" Grant asked despite his better resolutions.

"He's a Strucker," Kebo answered that one. "It's anyone's guess just how he will zig from there."

Kara just looked at Grant; Grant looked back at her. "Let's go," he told her. "I don't know what we're going to accomplish, but let's stir and see what happens?"

"Yes, let's," Kara said cheerfully. "I know that this isn't your best case approach, the entire improvisation, but-"

"Malick is Hydra, his immediate underlings here are also, good enough for us," Grant nodded sagely. "And if S.H.I.E.L.D. shows up-"

"We'll deal with one thing at a time," Kara said brightly. "Let us go!"

And so they went.

/ / /

They went to the wharf, where Von Strucker family yacht – and it was a very big luxury yacht, huge even – was located.

"Ah, Kebo, there you are," spoke the man in charge, who just looked like a typical Hydra asshole of a mid-level manager, "and there's the accountant… you." The last part was directed at Ward, who looked at the speaker and his entourage – a dozen men, each one looking as formidable as Kebo did, with a professional expressionless face.

"Me," he replied in an emotionless voice that matched his lack of a facial expression. "Kara?"

"Yeah?"

"Want to help me out here?"

"Sure!" Kara replied brightly, as she pulled her blades out of her purse.

"Kebo?" Grant continued.

"Yeah?" Kebo, who had been moving subtly away from the field of the upcoming battle, replied, reluctantly.

"Get Quinn to the Von Strucker and get him to start talking numbers-"

"Get them!" the Hydra agent who was still in charge shouted. "Now!"

His men charged. Grant and Kara rose (metaphorically speaking) to meet them. And Kara danced, her limbs and back and body back to her old self, as she enjoyed herself just as much as she had when she was trying on fancy hats and dresses, her knives flickering in and out like a pair of snake fangs, slicing through clothing and bodies with ease.

Physically, Grant was in a better shape than Kara was, and he did not feel like going for a finesse approach – he just hit his opponents. They were still lucky – he was trying to hit them only once, and right now he was frustrated enough to ensure that they did not get up after than one single punch.

…Some of them, admittedly, were tough enough to do just that, and also sufficiently stupid, to do that – again. In that case, Ward took his time punching them so in that case, when they went down again, they stayed down for good.

…And then it was over. The men were down and were staying down. "Now about you," Ward looked at their leader, the last man standing.

"Um," the latter said brightly, "er-"

"Kebo?" Grant took the comm.-link from one of their defeated opponents. "Where are you?"

"This isn't Kebo, it's me, Werner. The Von Strucker?"

"Nice to meet you, young man," Kara said brightly: the speaker on the other end sounded young and naïve…just not as much as he would want to. "Do you want Mr., uh-"

"Carmichael," Kebo's voice sounded through the comm.-link. "Yeah, bring him to the captain's mess or whatever the place is called."

Grant and Kara exchanged looks.

"Don't mind if we do," Grant said, noticing how Kara's eyes sparkled, (and cheeks dimpled, and um). "Come on," he told her.

And so up the yacht they went.

/ / /

…Once they were on the vessel, however, things progressed fairly quickly: Kebo met them halfway (or whatever – Grant wasn't very well versed in ship features, and neither was Kara), took the man Carmichael from their hands, and asked them to wait – very politely, as he had seen what happened to his former co-workers and didn't want more of the same to happen to _him_ personally.

"Now what?" Kara curiously asked her friend and partner.

"I smell the ship's kitchen," Grant said brightly, "or pantry, or whatever. Let us whip up something there while you tell me your plans. You want to follow this to the end?"

"Do I!" Kara said brightly, before pausing and adding, more reasonably: "What other choice is there? I know that you like it when we argue, but on this we're in agreement: S.H.I.E.L.D. can go and hang itself."

"Fair enough," Grant did not argue either, even as he collected ingredients for something somewhat more complex than a banal French toast. "What are you doing right now?"

"You may be a professional amateur cook, but I'm the sommelier in the couple," Kara said brightly, as she collected several bottles and other tools of the bar trade. "Let's make a small private meal, shall we?"

Grant raised an eyebrow. "A girl can dream," Kara shrugged and both of them went down with their respective jobs. It was tricky and hard enough labor even for the two ex-agents, so Quinn, and Werner, and Kebo were able to startle them – almost.

"This smells good," the young Von Strucker said as he sat down, flanked by Ian and Kebo. "Much better than what I'm used to. Are you two looking for jobs?"

Grant and Kara exchanged looks. "We're looking for something," Grant admitted, "but Hydra is certainly isn't there."

"Why?"

"Because it had Kara physically abused and subjected to the Faustus method-"

"-and had Grant Douglas here also physically abused and brainwashed in the old-fashioned way," Kara finished. "You _almost_ can spell S.H.I.E.L.D. as shite, and ergo, the first is full of the second, but Hydra? It is always worse. So yeah, no Hydra."

"I believe you," Von Strucker said simply, "and not just because our family sucked at leadership – just look at the mess my father made in Sokovia – killed by his own device!" (Both Kara and Grant were certain that calling Ultron 'a device' wasn't quite correct, but that wasn't the place to correct Werner, so they kept silent), "and uncle Gideon really is robbing us – or trying to. Father wasn't _that_ stupid, so it's not easy, ergo Stephanie…" Werner trailed away.

"Yes, that," Quinn muttered, looking rather conflicted himself. "Would you believe us being adrift without a purpose here?"

"Oh?" Grant raised an eyebrow. "What happened to Mr. Carmichael?"

"He's a conversation piece now," Werner smiled a rather shark-like smile. "Want to see?"

"Later," Kara and Ward exchanged another look. "Ian here says that you have no purpose?"

"No," Werner toned his inner shark down somewhat and looked more like his age once more. "Don't know where exactly we're going from here. Any ideas?"

"Yes," Kara said brightly, causing Grant to gape at her. "Or rather – Grant Douglas here does."

"I do not-!"

"At the spur of the moment no, but the spur has passed, and I bet-"

"Fine, I have a rough draft of an idea," Grant confessed. "But we need to go to New York first."

"Done," Werner said brightly, and so it was settled.

End


End file.
